


Fairy godmother

by Kangoo



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canonical Character Death, Fairy Godparent, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-28 09:49:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20776577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kangoo/pseuds/Kangoo
Summary: Someone needs to watch over Harry Potter. Might as well be a dead teenager.





	1. Chapter 1

Regulus, scion of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, dies in darkness. And as he’s being dragged to his watery grave by the clawing fingers of the Inferi, his last thought is_,_

_I wish I could have done more._

The universe listens, and answers.

-

Harry Potter is seven and too small for his age, small enough for a cupboard under the stairs. He’s used to strangers looking at him — scrawny, underfed, drowning in Dudley’s hand-me-down — and then away quickly, adults with pity and children with scorn.

The man does not. He looks, and looks, and _looks_. Harry looks, too, at his hair hanging around his face like he took a dip in the neighbors’ decorative pond, his too thin frame and too pale skin that his black cloak doesn’t manage to hide.

He looks like Harry feels: sad and tired and hungry. But his eyes hold nothing but curiosity, and then instead of looking away he kneels down and holds out a hand.

“Good morning, Harry,” he says, voice soft and quiet. Harry’s not used to people saying his name. He’s more used to hearing ‘boy’, or ‘freak’. “My name is Regulus. Do you want me to help you?”

-

“_I’m your fairy godmother.”_

_“Like Cinderella? But you’re a boy!”_

_“The title of godfather was already taken.”_

-

His help comes as hand-me-downs that magically fit, food coming out of thin air, a stone in Dudley’s path sending him sprawling to the ground.

It’s flowerbeds that weed themselves and laundry flying out of the basket to the clothesline when no one’s looking.

It’s a small light hanging in the cupboard’s darkness when Harry wakes up, shivering and teary-eyed, from nightmares.

It’s not enough.

-

Regulus’ magic has limitations in death that it never had in life. He can work miracles — only none that could truly save his charge’s life. Not directly, at least.

Fortunately, he’s always known his strongest point what his connections.

“Ms. McGonagall?” Harry says, timid and scared like only abused kids ever get, standing on Minerva’s front step like a lost thing. “My friend said you could help me?”

She doesn’t ask how he got there. Doesn’t ask where his parents are. She only looks angry, and then sad, and then kind when she ushers him in, casting a quick glance into the dark street.

She doesn’t see Regulus.

They never do.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Shrieking Shack confrontation, Black-style

What is death? An ocean of black water, endless and motionless. That is what Regulus awakes to, each and every time Harry needs him. Only then does he exist enough to feel the crushing weight of water above him, the burn of breath trapped in his lungs, the phantom pain of long-gone fingers still clawing at his skin, scraping, dragging-

Harry’s distress is a lighthouse in the distance, a bright light chasing away the darkness. Sometimes it is faint and distant — homesickness or anxiety, small troubles he couldn’t help with — and he cannot swim up to it in time to reach it before it disappears. Sometimes it is bright enough to turn the shadows dark grey, and his fingers can just barely brush against it, sending him stumbling into a world of colors and lights he can barely remember, faded and washed-out as he is.

It happened a lot more in the early days, when Harry was still raw and terrified from years of abuse. He’s doing better now. He doesn’t need his fairy godmother as much anymore.

Hogwart has been good to him, as it used to be to Regulus. He’s glad. At least some part of him is.

But sometimes, Harry will still feel so terrified or anguished the light will burst like a supernova, tearing the darkness apart and wrenching Regulus into the waking world.

Each time leaves Regulus off-quilter and shivering in sympathy fear, trying to find a way to save Harry in the midst of his confusion. It was a stone to Quirrell’s head in first year, a call to Fawkes’ inner magic in second year. Always desperate uses of his magic, reacting to danger rather than preventing it.

He’s a terrible fairy godmother. Didn’t even think to grant him a boon.

His third year was full of small bursts of fear, but never anything big enough for Regulus to reach out, and time slips through his fingers like fine sand.

But this time he doesn’t have the option to _think_ about missing the call. Light bursts through the darkness, turning his world pure white, and he feels like being thrown into a dozen different portkeys all at once. When he blinks the confusion out of his undead eyes, he is standing in a run down shack, the warmth of Harry’s magic at his back.

(The ancient floorboard doesn’t creak under his weight: he has none to disrupt the wood with. All he is is magic and desperation shaped into a person, barely a ghost anymore.)

In front of him: a red-headed teenager, brave yet wavering, face pale with fear and pain. A bushy-haired girl, with a white-knuckled hold on her wand. Remus Lupin, older and exhausted, more scarred than the last time he got a glimpse of him.

And in the center of this crowd—

Sirius Black.

His brother.

His unnecessary breath catches in his throat and stays stuck there as he looks at his brother. He is gaunt and dirty, thirteen years of prison etched into his features, carved into his bones. But his eyes are as stubborn as ever, hand outreached as if to placate the teenagers.

It falls when he lays eyes on Regulus, as if he could see him.

“…Reg?” He whispers, too shocked to make it more than a breath, and Regulus realizes he _does_.

He looks like a man going insane and painfully aware of it. Regulus can only echo the sentiment.

“Harry,” he says, refusing to react to his name. “Take your friends and go.”

“Regulus-” It’s both Harry and Sirius this time, the two staring at him — he can feel Harry’s eyes on the nape of his neck — while the others share similar expressions of confused disbelief.

Regulus smiles. It’s not a nice smile. It’s a Black smile; a Walburga-and-Beatrix smile. It’s the kind that’s all teeth, that he learned to plaster over his face under Voldemort’s reign.

In a wave of his hand, his charge and his friends fly through the room, tugged along by invisible line of magic. They disappear into the darkness surrounding the shack — darkness, always, everywhere — and Regulus slams the door on their tracks.

He is drowning again. There is no breath in his lungs, and though he doesn’t need it he still feels as if they were filled with water instead, cold yet ever burning.

“Sirius,” he says, finally, and sees his brother’s heart break there and then, right in front of his dark, dark eyes. “Why don’t you and I have a nice brotherly talk?”

He has thirteen year of Harry’s lonely terror to answer for, and Regulus has written every single hour of it beside his heart, where his magic lives and burns and keeps his dead bones together despite all.

Dead parents can’t avenge themselves. He will have to do.


End file.
